The present invention relates generally to printing, and more specifically to the modification and control of print information of printable information units.
With the innovation of word processing and email applications that are able to display text in a wide spectrum of colors, application users are able to demarcate or highlight specific printable information units (e.g., words, paragraphs, figures and drawings) of a particular document or message. Moreover, in some of the current applications, these printable information units default to being color for certain documents and messages. One example is for reply messages on the email application, Microsoft(copyright) Outlook, where the default color of the reply text is blue.
Additionally, color printers allow the users of these applications to not only display but also print in color. However, at times, an application user may want to print these colored fields in black and white. Under today""s systems, application users are provided the option of printing in black and white those documents that are colored. However, a disadvantage of these systems are that the users are limited to either printing the entire document or message in color or in black and white. This problem leads to over usage of colored inks of colored printers for text that is not needed or required to be printed in color. Returning to the example above concerning Microsoft(copyright) Outlook where the default color for reply messages is blue, inevitably, application users who print reply messages from this application on colored printers would run dry the blue color of the colored printer more quickly and unnecessarily than the other colors of the colored printer. Accordingly, it would be desirable to improve the current system of displaying and printing of colored text in a document or message.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by embodiments of the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification. The invention describes methods and apparatuses for modifying and controlling print information. In one embodiment, a color designation for a subset of printable information units is overridden for printing. Examples of printable information units include, but are not limited to, words, text, figures and drawings in a document and/or file on a computer system. In one implementation, the color designation is changed from non-black to black. The printable information units are then printed. In additional embodiments, the overriding of the color designation is based on user input and non-user input.
In an alternative embodiment, printable information units are displayed, wherein a subset of the printable information units are of a first color designation.
The first color designation for this subset is then changed to a second color designation for printing. The printable information units are then sent to a printer to be printed. In another embodiment, a color of a subset of a plurality of displayed text is designated for display. The color of the subset is changed for printing. The plurality of displayed text is then sent to a printer. In yet a further embodiment, a print code is attached to a subset of printable information units, such that the print code precludes the printing of the subset. The printable information units are then sent to a printer to be printed.
Still other and further aspects and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the following detailed description.